


Is He Cute?

by Ohnonnynonny



Series: Being Productive By Way Of Not Being Productive [10]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Blind Date, Crack, I forgot how to tag, M/M, Modern AU, Swearing, it's been a minute, meet cute, ridiculous situations, spy verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 22:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16026941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohnonnynonny/pseuds/Ohnonnynonny
Summary: Those three words were code for Blind Date courtesy of Morgana. She had her finger in every secret organization you could think of. There were far better ways to use that kind of power, but apparently it brought Morgana immense joy to watch Arthur suffer. Why she kept trying to set Arthur up with agents from every other organization out there he would never know. It always ended up badly in one way or another.





	Is He Cute?

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly thought my fic writing days were over, but seems like there are a few ideas that still want to be written. Literally wrote this all tonight with no thoughts as to why. The story took a quite a different turn. The idea I had was not this. Two elements of my original idea survived in this fic. Perhaps I'll write the other version one day. This is crack as I am cracked out. I hope you guys enjoy! All mistakes are my own, sorry if there are too many mistakes. 
> 
> Characters are not mine, blah blah all that good stuff. Please don't post elsewhere without my permission. Did I get everything?

“Target in sight?”

“Affirmative.”

“You’ve got one hour to acquire and eliminate.”

“Affirmative.”

“One last thing Double 0”

“Make it quick.”

“Is he cute?”

“Goodbye M.”

Arthur turned off his ear piece before Morgana could annoy him any further. He should have known. Those three words were code for Blind Date courtesy of Morgana. She had her finger in every secret organization you could think of. There were far better ways to use that kind of power, but apparently it brought Morgana immense joy to watch Arthur suffer. Why she kept trying to set Arthur up with agents from every other organization out there he would never know. It always ended up badly in one way or another.  

—

“Reservation for Pendragon,” Arthur said to the maitre-d’

“Ah, yes, your usual table is reserved for you, Mr. Pendragon. Your party is already here,” spoke the man in a voice even posher than Arthur’s.

Arthur barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes, but he couldn’t deny that George had the best service with the utmost discretion. He walked over to the terrace of the restaurant where the most coveted spot was located. You had to be extremely rich, powerful, or be named Morgana Pendragon if you wanted that spot.

Arthur let out a deep sigh before walking over.

“How did it go?” asked Morgana, not bothering to look up from her magazine, oversized sunglasses failing to hide the mirth in her eyes.

“You know it didn’t. Really Morgana? Haven’t you run out of agents to throw at me?” Arthur said with a huff.

“Pity. He was rather cute,” Morgana said, closing her magazine and finally taking off her sunnies.

“Yes, he was rather cute when he mistook me for his actual target and tried to poison me. Morgana, please stop trying to set me up in the middle of my missions. It’s rather distracting,” Arthur said as he unfolded his cloth napkin and placed it on his lap. “Why were you handling my mission anyway?”

“I was bored,” Morgana replied with a smirk.

Arthur was about to call her out on her bullshit when the waiter arrived with two glasses of wine and a tray of small cakes. He gave a short bow and walked away.

“Morgana, I swear, if you don’t stop setting me up in the middle of my missions, I’ll tell Leon what you really did that summer of ‘07,” Arthur warned.

“Fine. I’ll stop setting you up in the middle of your missions,” Morgana said magnanimously.

“Good. That’s settled. No. Like hell it is. What’s the catch?” Arthur said wearily.

“You have to go to all the blind dates I’ll be sending you on,” said Morgana, twirling her wine glass before taking a small sip.

“Absolutely not—”

“Then I’ll tell Uther what really happened in the winter of ‘05,” Morgana said, knowing she already won the argument.

Arthur downed his wine in one.

“Every other day until you actually like one of them,” Morgana said with a triumph in her eyes.

“I hate you,” Arthur said with a fake smile plastered on his face.

—

Date 1

Arthur didn’t think his ironclad poker face would ever be challenged. Arthur had an immovable face in the middle of the most grisly killings, but this was just at another level. He had turned up to a seedy looking restaurant as per the choice of his date, but he decided to give it and her the benefit of the doubt.

He did not expect to see fried insects as the only appetizers on the menu. He did not expect live frogs as one of the restaurant’s most famous, exotic delicacies. He certainly did not expect his date to order both and shovel it down her throat as if it she couldn’t get enough.

“I’m sorry, Elena, duty calls,” Arthur said, trying to look apologetic instead of horrified as he pointed to his phone. “You know how it works.”

“Sure, of course! Too bad you barely got to eat,” said Elena with her mouth full.

Arthur had to suppress a gag. He just gave her a what can you do shrug and all but ran out of there.

“I’m actually sorry you had to witness that,” said a voice behind him.

If Arthur hadn’t actually thrown up in the alley, he would have heard Morgana approach much sooner.

“What are you doing here,” Arthur grunted.

“First date and all, I thought I’d check in. Elena is a doll, who knew her tastes would be so…”

“Fucking disgusting?” Arthur helpfully supplied.

“Fucking disgusting,” Morgana agreed. “So now I’m here to take you out for good ole fish and chips?”

“You being so charitable must mean you really do feel bad. Throw in a couple pints and I’ll forgive you,” said Arthur, clearing his throat.

“Done,” Morgana said with a smile.

—

Date 5

“Morgana, what the actual fuck??” Arthur hissed in the elevator.

“What is it now, Arthur?” Morgana’s voice was lazy through the ear piece.

“This _promising_ agent asked for the chef not to de-feather his duck before cooking it and when he was told all the ducks they purchase already come de-feathered, he sighed dramatically, said ‘I knew this would happen,’ pulled a fucking half dead duck out of his coat, and gave it to the waiter!” Arthur nearly shouted.

All Arthur could hear was cackling.

“You can’t fault me for leaving,” said Arthur, already at his car by now.

“I apologize. I let Gwen pick from a pool of names. Cedric Sigan was never supposed to be one of the options for you, but it was too late when I realized it. Hiring George as my PA is frighteningly efficient,” Morgana said with a chuckle.

“Since when-no, nevermind. I don’t want to know. I’m done with this bullshit—”

“I have photo evidence of a certain winter,” Morgana teased.

“I’ll be there for the next one. Now kindly fuck off,” Arthur groused.

He didn’t wait for her response before he pulled the ear wig out and tossed it out his window.

—

Date 9

“You have reached the voicemail of the prestigious Morgana Pendragon. If you wish, you may leave a short message with your contact information and she’ll get back to you if it is deemed important enough. *Beep*”

“What the fuck voice recording is that? I can’t tell if it was your idea, or if was George’s, but you should change it immediately,” Arthur slurred.

“I don’t know if you’re doing this on purpose, but—hic—you’re a terrible person, Gana. At least this one had a refined taste for alcohol. Not! Not enough to be a redeeming quality. Do you even know what he did?? He called himself a snake charmer and then looked straight at my dick as if he could see through my slacks and pants! Fucking as if! As if! _he_ could get me drunk enough to sleep with him, HA!” Arthur continued to rant.

“Arthur, dear, why are you calling me when I’m right in your ear,” said Morgana, failing to suppress her laughter.

“Because… Because fuck you, Gana. I don’t know how much more I can take,” said Arthur, his voice getting small.

“Lucky number 14,” Morgana whispered.

“Huh? What?” Arthur said, narrowing his eyes as if that would make it easier to hear.

“Nothing. Get in the cab,” said Morgana.

Sure enough, there was a black cab waiting for Arthur. He huffed, but said nothing else, once again throwing out his earwig in the middle of the street.

—

Date 13

“Hello Arthur Pendragon. It’s good to finally meet you. I’m your son. Mordred.”

Arthur choked on his wine as the young man took a seat.

“Nah, I’m just fucking with you. I owed Morgana a favor. This is just a filler date by the way. So I’ll just be on my way, ta!” said Mordred, as he proceeded to shove all the breadsticks, basket and all, into his tote bag, right before leaving.   

Arthur motioned for the waiter.

“Would you like a top up, sir?” asked the waiter.

“No. Bring me a bottle of your best whiskey,” Arthur said, pulling out one of Morgana’s credit cards that he swiped.

“Arthur, is that my—”

“You’ll be tipped handsomely,” said Arthur, taking out his earwig to crush both the device and Morgana’s voice.

“Sir, we don’t sell by the bottle as that could be considered irresponsible. We promote drinking responsib—”

“The entire fucking bottle,” Arthur all but commanded.

“Yes, sir, right away sir,” the waiter squeaked.

He started to walk away, but came back to plead, “But please don’t drink it all and then get into an accident and die, sir. I could lose my job!”

Arthur couldn’t help feel a little bad for this boy who looked like he was still a uni student. He took a look at the boy’s name tag. “Don’t worry, Daegal. This is more for small sibling revenge. Now, make that _two_ bottles.”

“Oh, now that I can get behind,” said the boy with a cheeky grin. “Would you like to try the house special for your entree? It’s excellent, though a bit small, but deliciously overpriced.”

“Why not. Make that two orders. I’m feeling a bit peckish,” Arthur said with a grin.

“I’ll get right on that, sir!” said Daegal, practically saluting.

Arthur couldn’t help but chuckle. He didn’t know what was meant by a filler date, but he found that he didn’t care. Once he hit the 15th date, he would pull his ultimate trump card on Morgana so that she would just leave his love life the fuck alone. He was saving it, but desperate times.

—

Date 14

Arthur was surprisingly having a nice time. He was at a semi-posh restaurant, having a quality conversation with Mithian about choice of weapon out in the field. There was nothing particularly amazing about the agent, but he’d have no trouble agreeing to a couple of more dates because the potential was definitely there.

Just when he was about to share one of his classic Yes, I’m Quite Impressive And Hilarious stories, he had a bread roll lobbed at his head. If it weren’t for his quick reflexes, Arthur would have been more pissed of. As it were, he was just confused.

“The fuck—”

“Arthur Pendragon! How could you!”

Arthur turned around to see a beautiful, fey looking man stride across from the other side of the restaurant—had the man really thrown the bread from all the way over there?—with angry and anguished eyes. The man came to a stop right in front of Arthur. Being hit with the full force of this man, Arthur couldn’t even come up with the words to ask who the fuck this guy was.

“You promised that the last time was the last time! Now what is this? You’re sat here with a beautiful woman, acting like we haven’t been married for the last 10 years. 10 beautiful fucking years, Arthur! I gave you my prime!” the man all but wailed.

Being accused of total bullshit was enough for Arthur to snap out of his trance.

“Now wait a minute—”

“Arthur, I thought you were different. If you’ll excuse me,” Mithian said, giving Arthur a cold look. “Oh and lose my number.”

Before she left, she turned to the man—when did he pull up a chair?—and gave him an appreciative once over before pulling out a business card.

“I know a great divorce lawyer. Call me if you need one. Or if you ever want to grab a drink,” said Mithian, throwing the other man a flirty wink and strutting out the restaurant.

Arthur’s mouth was open in shock, but he quickly schooled himself. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to face this crazy, although beautiful, man. When he opened his eyes, it was to see the man smiling ruefully at him. Before Arthur could ask any questions, the man began to speak.

“I didn’t know this was actually a blind date. I’m really sorry, mate,” said the man.

“Do I know you?” asked Arthur.

“Oh, sorry, I’m Merlin.”

“So I don’t know you,” said Arthur, giving Merlin his full, undivided attention.

“Uhh no?” Merlin said, scratching his head.

“Yet you called me mate, I guess literally too, seeing as though we’ve been married for 10 years,” Arthur said with a predatory smile.

“Ha whoops?” Merlin said, trying to act like he cared, but failing.

“Cut the shit, _Mer_ lin, what’s going on?” Arthur demanded.

“Oh fine. Morgana is your handler right?” asked Merlin, getting more comfortable in his seat and reaching over to grab Mithian’s glass of wine.

“Sometimes,” Arthur said carefully.

“Well, every once in a while, I like to crash her missions and watch them fail when she pisses me off. I usually choose unimportant ones, obviously, I’m not a baddie, so that she’d have more paperwork to do and all that rot” said Merlin, moving on to the untouched appetizers.

“And what made you think that this was a mission?” Arthur asked, topping up his glass of wine and Merlin’s.

“Bug in her conference room?” Merlin said with a cheeky grin. “Gwen was talking about how she knew Mithian and how if this mission goes well, they’d have another alliance in their organization. They did talk about it for a while. Morgana even asked if the agent was cute, which is another little piece of blackmail I can hold against her.”

“Wait. Morgana asked if she was cute?” Arthur needed to make sure he heard right.

“Yeah. I know she’s married to Leon now, but she had quite the wild past that one,” Merlin said his eyes crinkling in mirth.

Arthur huffed out a little laugh that turned into full blown laughter. Merlin twitched in surprise, but then joined in.

“Well, _Mer_ lin, you ruined a perfectly good date. How are you going to make up for it?” teased Arthur.

“Please, I’d make a far better date than Mithian. She didn’t even stay to hear your side of things,” said Merlin.

“Prove it,” Arthur challenged.

Merlin lifted an eyebrow at Arthur before giving him a completely disarming smile.

“Be prepared to have the best first date of all first dates, prat,” teased Merlin.

Before Arthur could say anything, there were sudden bursts of gunfire at the restaurant. Arthur automatically pulled out the gun from his ankle holster and was about to tell Merlin to get behind him, when he saw Merlin chamber a cartridge into a gun that seemingly came out of nowhere.

To say Arthur was a bit turned on would be an understatement.

“Your lead?” asked Merlin, acknowledging Arthur as the lead agent to minimize friendly fire.

Those words were like music to his ears.

“On me,” said Arthur, adrenaline and excitement rushing through his veins.

Arthur would eventually thank Morgana later, after scheming with Merlin that is. Morgana was extremely disappointed that nothing came out of his encounter with Merlin and extremely displeased that Arthur would no longer be going on her blind dates.

After secretly dating Merlin for 6 months, they revealed the surprise via Christmas card. Apparently Merlin and Morgana had a history of sending each other outrageous Christmas card photos, always trying to one up the other. A tradition of Merlin’s that Arthur happily joined in on.

“Do you think she’s received it by now?” wondered Merlin out loud.

Just then both of their cell phones buzzed with an incoming message. Both from Morgana, it said the same thing:

_Fuck you guys._

_I’m happy for you, Arthur.. Fucking finally and I told you so and you owe me._

_You win this time, Merlin_

xxM

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot how fun fic writing can be. Hopefully this is a clear sign that I haven't quite lost it yet. Check out my other fics if you haven't! Thanks for all the comments and kudos 
> 
> x K


End file.
